Archive for February, 2011

I’m a bit torn up over the tragedy in Christchurch. It’s a horrible thing that’s happening to mostly good people and it makes me sad. On a whole, the New Zealand response to this disaster makes me proud to live here and reminds me why I am here. To see a country, so organised, so ready to respond, pulling together in a crisis is a wonderful thing to behold.

There is one thing that annoys me to no end though: the brainless god utterances.

As with any disaster, the faithful inevitably excrete idiocies centred around the pious bullshit they believe. That may sound a bit harsh but it should, I am a bit angry.

“Pray for Christchuch”, “I’m praying for everybody in Christchurch” and “We should all pray for Christchurch” is fundamentally stupid. If the deity you are now going to pray to needs to be told about what just happened he isn’t omniscient and therefore is not a god. If he knew about it and caused it, this god you pray to is an evil mass murdering bastard. If he knew about it and he was able to stop it but didn’t, he’s criminally negligent. If he wasn’t able to stop it, he’s not a god. Why, exactly, are you praying?

And seriously, you think the evil bastard who just killed 65 (at the current count) people or at the very least let them die is going to give a crap now, after the fact, just because YOU happen to be asking? You think the deity who is currently listening to several hundred people dying under rubble is magically going to lift the concrete to let them out because YOU are piously telling people to ‘pray for Christchurch’? Hubris. Pious idiocy.

Thankfully, there is no god. Thankfully, because if there was, he should be locked up for crimes against humanity. Thankfully, because the people of New Zealand are equipped just fine to deal with this themselves without the empty promise of a sky fairy to give them false security.

Praying. Praying is something you do so that you can feel like (and look like) you’ve done something without actually having to do anything. Praying is like wanking. Essentially, it’s only good for the person stroking his own dick. Sure, some other people get off on seeing somebody wank in public and some people get off on telling other people to wank in public but in the end it’s only the wanker that benefits.

That is why I am angry. Watching people tell other people to ‘pray for Christchurch’ is like watching one wanker, furiously whacking away, telling a bunch of other wankers to join him.

Like this:

Homoeopathy, it’s a load of crap. Oh, there are a couple of other ways to say that but it comes down to the same thing. Horse shit or magic vibrations, doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t work. Believe it does work? Then make a million US dollars by proving to James Randi and the world that it does. Or… don’t bother with a million bucks because selling the shit is making you way more.

Those two wretched words are “faith” and “homeopathy”. Please go kill it. Kill it, then burn it, then piss on the ashes, then use the ashes to fertilize a field and grow a tall stand of grass, then burn that, and then use the field as a fecal lagoon where you toss the waste from raising pigs, which you turn into bacon, thereby salvaging something useful from it.

How I laugh. That’s why PZ Myers is high up on the list of people I’d like to meet! He is filled with so much awesome that often some of that awesome spills onto his keyboard and produces treasures like the quote above.

Like this:

Right, the two people who visit this blog regularly might have notice I haven’t been posting lately. Two reasons for that: 1. I’ve been really busy working, many things going on and 2. the people who I follow and unapologetically re-post, the people who I get all my material from have also not been posting.

Anyway, so I just watched a YouTube video by 43alley (which was excellent, but that’s not the point) and noticed a comment that made a lot of sense. Now, I know, YouTube is hardly the place to find sage like utterances. Most comments are barely recognisable as language to begin with but perhaps the quality of person drawn to 43alley’s video’s is not run of the mill. Who knows.

The comment by “MillyVanillification” was this:

Religious people﻿ have on[e] advantage: They know little about what their religion tells. With so little knowledge it’s easy to have a quiet conscience.

I think that’s pretty spot on for the vast majority of religious people. They know virtually nothing about what they believe and why they believe it which makes it easy to keep a clear conscience.

The Bible condones slavery. It does so repeatedly and sets out very specific rules about how slaves are to be treated.

The arguments your better than average educated Christian throws up usually go something like this:

“Slavery in the Bible wasn’t so terrible, it was more like being an indentured servant. Some times, in the old days, people DECIDED to go into slavery to pay off their debts.”

I argued with a foolish little man not too long ago who insisted on backing up the Bible, saying that the slavery it describes and prescribes was just fine, because of the the aforementioned ‘slavery lite’. Unfortunately, the Bible provides all the evidence you need to pass judgement:

Leviticus 25:44-46:
25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

“That was the old testament, Jesus came and made everything wonderful. I follow Jesus and He made everything right.”

Yea? I don’t think so. Quote me the passage where Jesus says slavery is wrong? That’s right, there isn’t one. He did however say a whole bunch of things pertinent to this, let’s take it from the top:

Mathew 5:18-19:
5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven

Oh, that sucks; Jesus Christ super star just said right there that all of the old laws still apply (those laws would include the bits about slavery , stoning your gay son to death and keeping virgin female children ‘for your self’ after conquering their town) and anybody who teaches otherwise… I wonder what being “the least” literally means? (Notice, New Testament)

Ephesians 6:5
6:5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;

Very much in the New Testament in black and white.

1 Timothy 6:1
6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

Let me translate: if you’re a Christian and you’re a slave, shut up, quit complaining and honour the asshole who literally owns you as property as if he were your freaking God. Nice. (New Testament)

Luke 12:46-47
12:46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

So… Jesus reckons God is like a slave owner who beats his slaves (with many stripes)? Not exactly what I would call a ‘condemnation’ of slavery. (Some more New Testament)

Just for interest sake, here’s a list of the verses in the Bible that approve of slavery (the list of verses that don’t disapprove of slavery is much, much longer):

The cognitive dissonance that Christians on a whole exhibit is mind-boggling.

To make Christianity work in modern times your average Christian is forced to ignore hundreds upon thousands of barbaric and ignorant verses in the unchanging perfect word of God while cherry picking only a few with a ‘feel good’ message. He then has to build his entire world view and belief system on this small number of cherry picked verses and he has to physically ignore the rest while proclaiming that Christianity is the ultimate truth.

How do so many people manage to convince themselves that so many things that are, are not. Seriously, I just don’t get it.